Drama Box 30 Keywords

By Quah Sy Ren

A comprehensive, multi-layered examination and discussion of Drama Box's 30-year history, based on 30 key words. These allow you to connect and refer to the characteristics and social thought of the times on a broader level. The book offers exclusive insight into Drama Box as an independent theatre company, and incisive appreciation of Singapore's theatre and social landscape.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pagesetters Services Pte Ltd
• Release date: Jan 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9789811819186

Book preview

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Foreword Kok Heng Leun

Introduction Quah Sy Ren

CREATING THEATRE

01 The 1990s Generation Quah Sy Ren

02 Full-Time Practice Clarissa Oon

03 Black Box Theatre Teo Eng Hao

04 Mainstream Theatre Ng How Wee

05 Community Theatre Teo Qi

06 Forum Theatre Yeo Min Hui

07 Site-Specific Performance Quah Sy Ren

08 News Busters! Neo Hai Bin

09 Blanc Space Cheow Boon Seng

10 Multilingual Ng How Wee

11 Cross-Cultural Neo Hai Bin

12 Multidisciplinary Chong Gua Khee

13 Transnational Mok Cui Yin

14 Gender Robin Loon

15 Queer Lau Si Xian

ENGAGING SOCIETY

16 Social Engagement Teo Qi Wen

17 Public Space Corrie Tan

18 GoLi – The Moving Theatre Chan Cheow Thia

19 Both Sides, Now Charlene Rajendran

20 Call and Response Wong Yunjie

21 Cross-Sectoral Shawn Chua

22 Sustainability Teo Qi Wen

23 Language Clarissa Oon

24 History Wang Fang, Kate

25 Memory Quah Sy Ren and Ng Bi Yu

26 Documentation Teo Eng Hao

27 Education Roy Lee

28 ARTivate Yeo Min Hui

29 Negotiation Teo Eng Hao

30 Artivism Lau Si Xian

30 Years of Theatre Creation and Social Engagement Tay Jia Ying and Khaw Han Chung

Contributors

Foreword

Kok Heng Leun

drama box 30 keywords

Thirty years.

In terms of human life, thirty years means maturity. At thirty, one should be able to stand on her or his own, and have accumulated some achievements.

In terms of the life of a theatre company, what is thirty years?

Grotowski once said that an arts group must reinvigorate its creativity every five years. Based on a five-year cycle, Drama Box has gone through six cycles. Combing through the company’s history, there are six stages of the company’s development that can be identified.

1990–1994

In the earliest days, a group of graduates and current students of the National University of Singapore Drama Group decided to form a theatre company, mainly because they liked the communal life of theatre-making and hoped to continue it after graduation, living that sort of life and maintaining those friendships. Coincidentally, two other Chinese language theatre groups came onto the scene at the same time, and together, the three companies came to be referred to as the new generation of Singapore’s Chinese language theatre. I remember we were quite pleased with that label. But, compared with the other two companies at the time, our performance methods and skills were conservative and traditional. Though we followed the trend of Devising Theatre, with our lack of professional or academic training in theatre, we were like children, clumsy and unrefined, with some interesting ideas, but nothing new. But because it was our own theatre company, we were creating our own stories, and we were very committed. We always reminded ourselves that if the finished product was not good, it was better to close the company down than to just go on like that.

In 1993, Otto Fong’s Another Tribe was a minor breakthrough for Drama Box. The play has a bold theme and was written with sincerity. In addition, it was directed ably and the performance did justice to the script. The performance was generally well received, giving us a boost.

1995–1998

During this stage, we were mainly concerned with how we might attract a larger audience. All of us rehearsed after work, so of course we hoped that each show would be a success at the box office, so that our hard work would be justified. At the same time, many of our members were focusing on their careers, and they were tired. At this time, we began to add to the group friends who were not from our university alumni circle. During this period, we collaborated with a radio station and its hosts, and we produced two or three performances a year. We hoped to achieve great things, and that the hard work we put into each play would be rewarded with a positive response from viewers. But what sort of development could Drama Box see in these circumstances? I vaguely wondered whether we could move to full-time work, but it was all just talk, with no concrete ideas or plans. We did very well at the box office in 1996 and 1997, which gave us some comfort.

Then in 1998, we hit a crisis point. We were all exhausted. Did we have the motivation to continue to create?

1998–2003

This was our bumpiest stage, and it proved to be a watershed moment.

In 1998, we decided to go all out. We took the group’s $30,000 savings and hired full-time staff members. We hoped with someone working full-time, we would be able to put up better performances and attract larger audiences. But if we used up our savings and still saw little development, we would close Drama Box for good.

We worked hard to find interesting themes and to think of ways to attract audiences to our productions. We did martial arts dramas, musicals, and other popular forms of stage performances, always keeping a careful eye on what sorts of productions people wanted to watch.

It was also during this period that the company found a new home in a four-storey shophouse in Kreta Ayer, and we began to experiment with new things in this space. The experiments with Li Xie and Lee Shyh Jih’s work in this small space made us feel more grounded. We were working hard and learning to create. In 2000, Li Xie’s The vaginaLOGUE received a good deal of feedback and was a huge success. Many people began to think that Drama Box’s works were controversial.

At the same time, in an effort to grow our audience, we produced outdoor performances in the community. At that time, we had a very good backstage crew that would tour with us. We generally set up the stage in the morning, then performed that evening. After the performance, we dismantled the stage and packed up. The following day, we set up the stage in another community, performed, and dismantled the stage again. I often think about this team – Yanlong, Peishi, Seok Ai, Seok Muay, Mingxiu, Renee, Baohuan, and the rest.

We also started performing forum theatre works in the community. This interactive theatre form was the most important element that brought change to Drama Box. When we moved to full-time work, we wanted to attract audiences. Our performances were in the community, but central to this work was that we learned how to establish interaction with the audience. We learned that our audience was a community made up of diverse communities. This gave our artistic exploration a clear direction.

We gradually began to focus on how to interact with audiences and how to make the interaction deeper. Art is never only a finished product; it is also a practice. Art as practice became the core of our aesthetic.

After four years of hard work, though we had established some new audiences in the community because our performances were free, we had not received any annual operating grants from the National Arts Council. As a result, the company began losing money.

In 2003, SARS struck. We were unable to make ends meet, so we had to stop full-time operations.

2004–2010

This period can be considered the golden age in which Drama Box solidified its foundation. Because of the discoveries we had made in the previous stage, we established an artistic direction for the theatre. We strove to explore ways that we could interact with audiences and the community and create an imaginative aesthetic space through interaction, dialogue, and collaboration in the theatre. At the same time, we began to collaborate with communities and through their direct participation, Drama Box’s creative works became more diverse.

The new members of our team, Koh Hui Ling and Evelyn Chia, helped in the establishment of NeNeMas and the educational branches of our work, focusing on schools and youth. In 2007, ARTivate was established to give young people the chance to learn how art enriches life and gives it meaning. During this period, the company’s financial situation stabilised.

2011–2014

Audiences for Drama Box’s works became increasingly diverse. Because we performed outdoors, we started meeting audiences of different ethnic groups, so we began to create in multiple languages.

We also began to discover the limitations of theatre during this period, and to discover the charms of other arts fields. We worked hard to learn to integrate other art forms into our artistic exploration and deepen the significance of our interactions. We began working with arts practitioners from other disciplines.

2015–2020

During this period, Drama Box explored ways it might create sustainable engagement. For instance, our exploration of life and death, Both Sides, Now, has lasted for seven years. Its significance lies in learning to allow the transformative function of art to penetrate into life, to intervene, and to dialogue with the system.

For us, the so-called aesthetic space not only appears in performance venues, but can also appear in public spaces, and even in personal spaces.

This detailed description helps us to make sense of Drama Box's thirty-year history. Our early ignorance was filled with anxiety because we did not know what we were looking for. But once we had a clearer artistic vision, everything gained clarity.

I must thank all our friends who agreed to write these essays. Drama Box is the biggest beneficiary of this book. Your analysis is an important reference point for our future.

I would also like to thank Shelly and Lily for their translation and Yong Yi for his design. This book has been a huge project, and the complicated work of coordination fell entirely on Jia Ying and Han Chung, to whom I must express my gratitude.

And my thanks also to Sy Ren for editing this book on behalf of Drama Box, allowing us to reflect on our journey through the writings of others. Over the past thirty years, Sy Ren has observed the growth of Drama Box, and he has criticised our work objectively. When it is good, he offers praise. When it is bad, he gives tough, constructive input. For this reason, there is no one else better suited to edit this book.

Thirty years. What exactly has Drama Box achieved? This is not for us to say. But in the past thirty years, we have gained much. I have always liked the Chinese name of NeNeMas, 众伙人, because in all three characters, we see people (人). Without people, there is no Drama Box. People inhabit the centre of our artistic vision. For thirty years, what brings Drama Box greatest joy is the chance to experience human resilience and warmth in the community. I am grateful for this.

Of course, without the support of many partners, Drama Box would certainly never have reached its 30th year. Everyone on stage, behind the scenes, full-time colleagues, supporting organisations, and audiences – I’m sorry I cannot write each individual name, but I’d like to thank you all.

At its 30th birthday, Drama Box has ushered in a new force. Our artistic team now has four members, Hui Ling, Xuemei, Yi Kai, and me. With their input, I believe Drama Box will continue to change. After all, as Lu Xun said, arts practitioners are never comfortable with the status quo. Drama Box will always respond to the changes in its environment.

I really like this quote from Herbert Marcuse: Art cannot change the world, but it can contribute to changing the consciousness and drives of men and women who could change the world.

This is the modest wish of Drama Box on our 30th birthday.

Introduction

Quah Sy Ren

drama box 30 keywords

In these days with great systems working everywhere and we being part of that system, it may still be possible to use art as a means to create your own world, because you can control the entire process from conceptualising, planning, and finishing the piece of art. In that kind of exercise, there is a possibility of still creating, retaining, defending, protecting, and even expanding a personal world.

— Kuo Pao Kun¹

This is a book about the history of Drama Box. I begin with a quote from the most important Singaporean dramatist Kuo Pao Kun – and this quote in particular – because it contains three key ideas. First, in terms of the development context of art and culture, Kuo shaped an entire era, or was at least the main promoter of that era, and the emergence and development of Drama Box happened in this context and was directly inspired by it, benefitting from the prominent thinking and themes of that time. We will find that in discussing Drama Box’s history, we often must go back and refer to what was happening in art and culture of that specific context of the 1980s and especially the 1990s. Second, the great system Kuo says we are a part of is the new social and cultural structure formed through this historical process. It is important to consider how artists and arts groups can explore, adapt, and obtain the nutrients for growth in this system, while also responding to and contending with the norms and suppression that inevitably come with the system. Third, Kuo mentions the role of artists in this society. To a large extent, this is the exact focus of Drama Box’s thirty-year history. The company is not only a creator of theatre works, but also engages in reflection on the artist’s avant-garde spirit, manifested and developed into concrete action to deeply engage society and change the less-than-ideal status quo.

Looking back at the more than a century long history of Singapore’s modern theatre, one conclusion we can draw is that transcending the notion of art for art’s sake is an important characteristic of theatre, which chooses instead to use theatre as a medium to have an impact on the community, society, and politics as a key part of its practice. As early as 1913, Singapore’s first modern vernacular theatre performance, entitled Qiying Shanshe (Society of the Seniors), was produced by leaders of Thong Chai Medical Institution, businessmen who were leaders of the Chinese immigrant community, in an effort to raise funds to aid flood victims in the Chinese province of Guangdong.² Before the Second World War, most of the theatre activities for the Chinese community, which was highly committed to philanthropy, were organised to raise funds for relief from war or natural disasters, or to build schools for children in the region. By the end of the 1930s, the number of local theatre activities reached a peak never seen before, due to the War of Resistance Against Japan then taking place in China. The Singaporean Chinese community responded enthusiastically, using theatre as a means to propagate the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and provide both spiritual and financial support to China.

After the war, theatre’s engagement in society and politics became more pronounced. From the post-war period to the end of the 1950s, theatre actively participated in the construction and imagination of emerging nation-states. This was closely integrated with and a key promoter of Singapore’s student movement, workers movement, and anti-colonial movement, which was part of the decolonisation struggle happening around many parts of the world. In the 1960s and 70s, in the context of nation building and development, theatre became a field of competition for different political ideologies. Many theatre practitioners ventured deep into the masses and used experience of life as a method to demonstrate the importance of combining theatre and community efforts. After the 1980s, society became more prosperous, and the state began to increase intervention in the arts scene, positioning the arts in a complementary role in support of economic development and nation building. In the process, arts groups attempted to strike a delicate balance between collaborating with the state and maintaining autonomy. Some theatre companies, while seeking to advance their art, were also committed to practice beyond the field of theatre, demonstrating a deeper engagement with the wider community.³ For more than forty years, from the post-war period to the end of the 1980s, while theatre extended its engagement into the community, it also intruded into a zone that was out of bounds politically, and those in power took several repressive steps against theatre, including banning performances, arresting practitioners, and closing down theatre companies.⁴

With the relatively lax, open political atmosphere since the 1990s, the relationship structure between the state and the art world has undergone fundamental changes. Theatre practitioners and companies are still at the forefront of social engagement and reflection on social issues. In this different context, most adopt a non-confrontational, collaborative strategy, while also insisting on artistic autonomy at certain appropriate moments, expressing critical ideas about the current and future situation.

Kuo Pao Kun’s remarks, quoted above, appeared in just such a context, which serves as a typical example. The event was a cross-border forum hosted by English language theatre company The Necessary Stage (another theatre company that values social engagement) twenty years ago. The theme was Protest, Challenge, Process: Singapore’s Cultural Activism. Participants included those from different backgrounds, such as artists, activists, and scholars. The theme of the forum highlighted the inevitable, unavoidable tension between artists and the social environment in which they live. It also suggested that artists use artistic creation as a means rather than an end in itself, aiming to show their ideals about society and the community. This is not a single, isolated action, but involves artists and arts groups, firmly anchored in their respective positions, starting to make a conscious effort to gradually form an alliance that has a certain degree of consensus while still retaining each part’s uniqueness. In a community that is by nature diverse, just like the various voices in this forum, there are not only intersections and complements, but also debates and confrontations.

Excavating, narrating, and reflecting on Drama Box’s thirty-year history in this complex context aims not only to showcase its theatre works or the content and style of the performances the company has created, but also inevitably involves a broader look at the cultural and social conditions surrounding them. The history of this company thus not only plays an important role in the history of theatre, but is also a meaningful part of cultural history, social history, and even political history. Currently the only academic monograph focusing on Drama Box as its object of research, Ng How Wee’s Drama Box and the Social Theatre of Singapore – Cultural Intervention and Artistic Autonomy, uses precisely this cross-disciplinary approach to show readers the significance of Drama Box’s theatre and social practice during the first fifteen years after the company’s founding.⁵

Now, another fifteen years have passed. From its start as an amateur group made up of university graduates, Drama Box has grown into one of the major theatre companies in Singapore today. Especially after its nearly two decades of professional operations, as it has increased its capabilities and gained influence, Drama Box has further established and deepened its unique ideology and direction, and the time has once again come to discuss and assess the company. About three years ago, Kok Heng Leun asked me to take charge of this project, and the result is the production of this edited volume. The original goal of writing history went through an arduous process, finally developing into this complex outcome.

When I first conceived of this book, I thought of the British pioneer of cultural studies, Raymond Williams, and of course, more importantly, his now classic masterpiece Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, which has inspired my own research and thinking over the years. Williams says of his keywords as a starting point for discussing culture and society:

they are significant, binding words in certain activities and their interpretation; they are significant, indicative words in certain forms of thought… Notes on a list of words; analyses of certain formations: these were the elements of an active vocabulary – a way of recording, investigating and presenting problems of meaning in the area in which the meanings of culture and society have formed.⁶

The meaning of keywords, especially the differences and changes in different historical and regional contexts, is the focus of Williams’ attention, which indicates that the variability and fluidity of these concepts are closely related to the cultural and social practices and institutions in different periods, giving these keywords deep, complex interactions and connections. Keywords has had a far-reaching impact in the decades since its publication. Much of the discourse on cultural and social studies has borrowed from and been inspired by Williams’ approach, especially in the fields of cross-disciplinary understanding and critical analysis.

This book is entitled Drama Box 30 Keywords, suggesting that it is a comprehensive, multi-layered examination and discussion of Drama Box’s history based on thirty keywords. The thirty keywords listed in the book were selected based on Drama Box’s practice and ethos over the years, as a way to achieve the purpose of reflection and discussion from different but equally important focal points. This approach is different from writing a general history. Though it is not possible to see the overall appearance of Drama Box during its thirty years in a comprehensive, coherent manner in the way a general history might present it, this approach can be more focused and offer more in-depth discussion presented around specific themes, allowing the reader to connect and refer to the characteristics and social thought of the times on a broader level. We hope that after reading these thirty keywords, readers will not only have an understanding of Drama Box as an independent theatre company, but also understand to a certain extent Singapore’s theatre and social landscape.

As mentioned above, Drama Box’s practice shows the intersection and interaction between the community of theatre practitioners and society. This book consciously divides the keywords into two thematic categories, CREATING THEATRE and ENGAGING SOCIETY. It is, however, apparent that these two categories cannot be separated so simply and clearly. In the discussion of various keywords, we see, clearly and frequently, that there are numerous common references, both within and between the two categories. The approach here seeks to emphasise Drama Box’s artistic creation as a theatre company and its extension from theatre to society. It is not a dominant-subsidiary relationship, but an equal emphasis on ideology and practice. Having said that, looking at the timeline, we see that Drama Box focused on creating theatre in the early days, then gradually moved deeper into social engagement, which is an observable development process. From the perspective of the company’s practice, these two categories may have some overlaps and mutual references. In Drama Box’s conventional theatre works, attention to and representation of social issues have gradually increased and intensified, growing into more mature, refined socially engaged projects that fuse theatre and other art forms.

Founded in 1990, Drama Box was born at a turning point, a time of great change. The first part of this book, CREATING THEATRE, first delineates the significance of Drama Box’s emergence as a new theatre company of the 1990s generation, and from this special historical context, it discusses the process and background of the company’s development from an amateur group to full-time practice. In this era of diversified theatre development, Drama Box started by staging performances in small-sized venues such as black box theatre that accommodated and encouraged experimentation, using Singapore’s first black box theatre at The Substation as its earliest base. After gradual growth, in order to expand its audience base, the company began to cross over to mainstream theatre forms in the late 1990s. At the beginning of the 21st century, the company established its direction of social engagement, focusing on expanding community theatre by touring around the island. In leaving the conventional theatre space, Drama Box committed itself to the use of forum theatre and site-specific performances as its main methods, establishing two key series as its brands, News Busters!, based on newspaper theatre, and the IgnorLAND series, tapping on community memories. In the course of strengthening its own development capabilities, the company launched another series, Blanc Space, to deepen its training of actors and cultivating playwrights, and thus contributing to the growth of the theatre community.

In Drama Box’s theatre works, there have been many explorations and successes in terms of form and subject. Starting from its positioning as a Chinese language theatre company, it soon came to represent diverse community interactions through the multilingual representation that emerged in Singapore in the late 1980s, collaborating with groups from different language streams and cultural backgrounds to explore history and the reality of life in Singapore, promoting cross-cultural understanding. During this period, Drama Box actively engaged with groups outside the theatre field, demonstrating its social awareness through multidisciplinary collaborations. In addition, against the background of the government’s desire to establish Singapore as a regional and international arts hub, the company expanded beyond borders and extended its role in transnational collaboration, working with artists in Asia and around the world, and promoted the community theatre model that the company developed over the years to groups in other countries to practise in their local contexts. On the whole, Drama Box has tended to give special attention to issues related to minority and marginalised communities. This section ends with gender and queer, examining ways in which Drama Box has used theatre as a non-mainstream art medium to facilitate an in-depth, progressive discussion of these two topics.

The second part of this book, ENGAGING SOCIETY, extends the understanding of how Drama Box has developed beyond a conventional theatre company that fundamentally focuses on theatre making to a broader social engagement by interacting and collaborating with the community. The first production Drama Box brought to the community was Lian Can Cook!, which toured four locations across the country in 2001, launching the community performances and activities that would follow over the next two decades. Venturing into non-conventional venues brought with it the new challenge of finding ways to communicate and initiate dialogues in open air public spaces. The tent-like mobile performance space, GoLi – The Moving Theatre, which was first introduced to audiences in 2015, was a creative, practical invention. Drama Box’s community projects aimed to stimulate the public’s sense of autonomy through communication and collaboration with the community, with the ultimate goal of empowering the people. Both Sides, Now, which was launched in 2013 and has continued over the past seven years, is the largest, most enduring of Drama Box’s projects. With it, the company has ventured into the community to stage performances and other diverse activities. It is an embodiment of the company’s broader sense of social commitment, and it establishes an interactive relationship of call and response between arts practitioners and the community on the ground. This process has prompted the company to explore and conduct multi-faceted cross-sectoral collaborations and to consider the core issue of sustainability, allowing it to extend its efforts and exert a more lasting influence.

Because of Drama Box’s diverse characteristics, especially its close attention to social issues, discussion